​Maureen Wilks

​

Artist, Photographer, Writer

Every year Green Eyes bloom from April through to the fall. Hardy plants with long tap roots that seek out the tiny amounts of moisture that falls on the land they brighten up roadsides and the scrubby desert south of town.

When the first Green Eyes blooms, snakes are emerging from their winter dens and searching for their first meal of the year. In late July I came across Romeo on a walk 10 miles west of town and brought him home to photograph. The next day we came across another Diamondback and put Stubby in the cage with Romeo. That evening Romeo began to rub the back of Stubby, classic mating behavior of a male courting a female. For the next five weeks we enjoyed watching our two lovebirds coiled around each other. We returned both to the wild from the same locations we had found them.